Jerusalem district police chief Daniel Barelli, displaying an arsenal of captured weapons and high explosives which he said was “enough to blow up half of Jerusalem,” told newsmen yesterday that police had sufficient evidence to file formal charges against almost all of the 80 Arab suspects rounded up so far in connection with the Feb. 21 supermarket bombing and bomb plantings at the British Consulate.
The main suspects include Rev. Elia Khoury, minister at the St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Ramallah, and Yousef Moustapha Odeh, a naturalized U.S. citizen, also of Ramallah, who was being held along with his three daughters, all in their early 20s. Mr. Barelli said that Rev. Khoury crossed the Jordan River several times in recent months to make contact with terrorist ringleaders in Amman and brought back instructions and explosives for sabotage activities. He said instructions for the ring originated at the Egyptian Embassy in Amman.
The police chief said other ringleaders were a Ramallah lawyer identified as Bashir Amad Kamel El-Khoury and Dr. Nabee Assid Mouamer a surgeon from Beit Hanina, near Jerusalem. “We have enough evidence to bring most of these people to court,” he said. He declared that the police knew how the bombs were prepared, how they were brought to Jerusalem, how and by whom they were planted in the supermarket and the means used by the terrorists to escape from the immediate area. He said more arrests were expected. The sabotage material and equipment displayed by police included explosive bricks, plastic bombs, hand grenades made in various countries, Italian-made mortar shells, fuses and timing devices and walkie-talkie radios. According to U.S. Consul Margaret J. Barnhart, Mr. Odeh was naturalized in Detroit, Mich, in 1955 and returned to Jordan in 1960.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
